


The sky is purple

by chanchanslide (orphan_account)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Autism, Coming of Age, Family, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Jealousy, Kids, Lee Jihoon | Woozi-centric, M/M, School, Time Skips, honestly this wasn't even supposed to happen, im supposed to be asleep, jeonghan has two moms, jihoon doesn't understand, light angst near the end but i promise it's not too rough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 19:12:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12087534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/chanchanslide
Summary: Jihoon is barely five when his mother drops him off at school for the first time. He’s a lot smaller than the other kids in his year, and he seems almost too far behind in his speech to possibly be old enough, but he kisses his mother on the cheek and watches as she leaves, proud smile on her face. Once she’s out of the corridor, Jihoon creeps around to the back of the room to cry by himself.





	The sky is purple

**Author's Note:**

> Note: before anyone says anything... yeah I did kind of forget seokmin when I wrote this :(  
> I tried to add him in but it made the story awkward and more confusing so I took him back out.

Jihoon is barely five when his mother drops him off at school for the first time. He’s a lot smaller than the other kids in his year, and he seems almost too far behind in his speech to possibly be old enough, but he kisses his mother on the cheek and watches as she leaves, proud smile on her face. Once she’s out of the corridor, Jihoon creeps around to the back of the room to cry by himself. 

“Hey, are you okay?”

A boy, taller than Jihoon himself, though not as intimidating as the other kids, has his head poked around the edge of the toy box, where Jihoon is sniffling, curled into a small ball. The stranger has dark hair and pointy teeth, much like a puppy. 

“My name’s Mingyu,” He introduces himself quietly, manoeuvring to squeeze into the empty patch of carpet next to Jihoon. From where Mingyu is breathing onto his hair, Jihoon decides that maybe it won’t be so bad if he has a friend. 

“Jihoon,” Jihoon smiles, face feeling uncomfortable from where dried tears are sticking to it. He likes Mingyu. 

“Teacher says we have to go and sit on the carpet,” Mingyu pouts. “But I don’t want to. I don’t have to sit on the carpet at home, anyway.”

“Bear?” Jihoon offers, holding up the stuffed toy helpfully. Mingyu frowns, because Jihoon didn’t seem to get the social cue like the others kids did. Nonetheless, he takes the bear carefully and turns it around in his arms. 

“How old are you?” Mingyu thinks that Jihoon must be younger than him, much younger, because his sister, who turned three a month ago, is better than him at having conversations. “I’m four.”

“Look!” Jihoon grins and gestures towards the box of multicoloured blocks. Mingyu is confused. 

“How old are you?”

Jihoon doesn’t reply this time, more occupied with looking around the room now his eyes aren’t glazed over. There are pictures on each bulletin board, and the walls are covered in soft orange paint. There are some toy cars in a box on the right side of the small area which has been cornered off, and Jihoon moves over to rearrange them into a line. They’re much better like that, he decides.

Mingyu watches with curious eyes as Jihoon organises the miniature vehicles into a straight line, so that the very back of the cars are equal. Any cars which are too small or too big are pushed to the side, to be rearranged in a line for odd cars. 

“Are you younger than four?” Mingyu presses again, leaning forwards to poke at the yellow car. Jihoon looks like he’s about to cry when the line gets disrupted. “Three?”

“I like the red one,” Jihoon answers a different question, pointing happily at the red car, which is directly in the centre. There’s nothing behind his eyes, no flicker of happiness like other children. 

“Jihoon?” This time, Jihoon’s head snaps up from where he’s babbling what sounds like baby speak to the car. “Are you four?”

“I don’t know,” Jihoon shrugs half-heartedly, mouth curling into an uncertain frown. Maybe he doesn’t like Mingyu after all. 

“Oh,”

“What was the number everywhere on your birthday?” Mingyu tries a different question. Maybe Jihoon simply doesn’t know how to count. 

“I don’t know. Didn’t have a birthday party,” The cars get pushed closer together. 

“Why not? Don’t you have any friends?”

“No,” 

 

Jihoon is six when his school direct his mother to a Speech Therapist, who diagnoses him with high-functioning Aspergers in minutes. He doesn't know why, but his mom cries in her room that night when she thinks he's sound asleep. She begs Jihoon's father to come and visit over the phone, tears dripping onto her chin as she yells into the mouthpiece, screaming about his incompetence as a parent. 

The same week, a boy Jihoon's age moves in down the street. His name is Junhui, and everyone likes him. 

When they talk for the first time, Junhui explains that he's only here for a little while, that he acts, that his parents are having money problems, that he's afraid. Jihoon doesn't understand, though he really wants to, despite his struggle. When Junhui's parents meet Jihoon for the first time, they frown and whisper. Junhui isn't allowed to play with Jihoon again. Jihoon tells himself he's okay. 

Wonwoo, another boy his age, lives next door, and their fathers know each other. Wonwoo's parents, unlike Jihoon's, are still happily married and have another two children. Wonwoo is quiet too, and he likes to play with organised toys, so they get along well. Jihoon takes one look at the bookcase overflowing with brightly covered books in the corner of Wonwoo's room and decides he wants to be an author. His mom laughs at him. He doesn't know why. 

 

Soonyoung comes into the picture during the Summer Holidays. He's bright, both his smile and his brain, and he dances every day after playing in the park with Wonwoo and Jihoon. 

"Jihoonie?" Jihoon never had a nickname before Soonyoung, but he likes it, because it makes him feel special. "What kind of things do you like doing?"

"I don't like anything," Wonwoo frowns at Jihoon's answer, shaking the grass from his hair with a perplexed look. Wonwoo got very clever and very grown-up this month, Jihoon thinks, feeling out-of-place. Soonyoung grew in the past weeks too, shooting up a few centimetres and getting into a national exam within hours. Their parents talk about it a lot, Jihoon knows because his mom does that thing where she picks at her food. Jihoon wishes he understood. 

"You must like something!" Soonyoung continues, picking up his shoes and dropping them back onto the grass. Small tufts of yellowing dead flowers puff up from their deathbed on the green expanse of field. "Someone?"

"No," Jihoon shakes his head furiously. He's a few months younger than Wonwoo and Soonyoung, so he isn't seven yet. Maybe liking things is a mature thing that only people who are seven understand, he assumes. The school kept him back a year, and he goes to class with people who he's jealous of and sits next to Mingyu because he knows him and he's always done that. "I don't like anything and I won't ever."

"Come on, Jihoon," Wonwoo chuckles, folding the page of his book. 

"Video games? Books? TV?" Soonyoung lists things off, scrunching up his face when Jihoon shakes his head even harder. 

"You're weird, Hoonie," Soonyoung sighs through a mouthful of crackers. Jihoon supposes he's right.

 

When Jihoon turns seven, his mother takes him out of his old school and enrols him in a new one. This school has lots of big signs and colourful words, and there is a special room he can go to if he wants to be alone. He doesn't make any friends. He likes going to the special room instead. 

One boy, named Jeonghan, introduces himself to Jihoon one morning. Jeonghan has two moms, one who stays at home and has an online business where she sells perfume and talks about how she got her black hair permanently blonde, and another who works at a shop and models clothing. They're both very pretty and very kind and love each other very much. 

According to Jeonghan, he doesn't need a dad to be happy. Jeonghan never met his dad, because once he was made he went out of the picture. Jihoon likes Jeonghan a lot because he can't remember his dad either. 

Jeonghan has ADHD. He's very energetic, and he gets in trouble in class for talking when he's not supposed to and not putting his hand up to ask questions. Jihoon thinks it's pretty when Jeonghan laughs at his forgetfulness and corrects himself like a grown-up would. 

"Ji," Jihoon hasn't had a nickname for a long time. His mom struggled to keep in touch with Soonyoung and Wonwoo when they moved to be closer to his new school, and Jihoon often remembers sitting on the grass with leaves in his hair being very jealous. He kind of misses it, in a twisted way. "Do you want to come to mine for dinner tomorrow?"

"Do you have chicken nuggets?" Jihoon only eats chicken nuggets when he's not at home, and when he is at home he eats pasta too, but only if it has tomato sauce on it and there are five grams of cheese on the top. That's too much to ask of a stranger, so he sticks to chicken for the time being, at least. 

"Yeah," Jeonghan nods. Jeonghan's first mom, the one with the blonde hair and the pink eyeshadow, put some wash-out blonde dye in Jeonghan's hair, and it made it a kind of dusky brown. Jihoon really likes it, especially when it shines under the bright classroom lights and Jeonghan tucks it behind his ear. Sometimes, he brings little hair clips to school in his pocket and at lunchtime Jeonghan adds a small braid into his bangs. 

"Okay."

Jeonghan's moms like Jihoon a lot. Jihoon gets pink wash-out dye in his hair, after he checks with his mom, and he decides he wants to be a fairy. At seven, Jihoon thinks that he's at his happiest. 

 

Jeonghan's family moves away the next year, because his grandmother got ill, and his second mom, the model, wants to take care of her until she 'passes away' Jeonghan explains.

Jihoon is eight when Seungcheol and Jisoo join his class. He doesn't like Seungcheol at all, because he messes up his lines and ignores him. His mom tries to explain, but Jihoon doesn't care. He doesn't like him, he doesn't want to try, and he won't be his friend. 

Jisoo is the one Jihoon likes. Jisoo talks about his parents and his church youth club and plays guitar at the weekend. Jihoon wants to be an author who is a fairy who plays the guitar. Jisoo encourages him, with a smile. Jisoo always smiles, even when he's not happy. Jihoon asked him once, but Jisoo says he doesn't know. Jihoon's mom tells Jihoon that some people smile because it hurts not to. Jihoon hopes that Jisoo hasn't got a sore face.

Jisoo has anxiety, and it's very bad, according to the class teacher. Sometimes, Jisoo gets very scared and he has to leave, and he goes to the special room. Jihoon goes there a lot because he doesn't like school and it's overwhelming to be in class. 

(Jihoon thinks that Jisoo is the most grown-up person he has ever met, because Jisoo has pierced ears and has a religion and knows how to organise himself. He's very jealous, and he finally thinks that being jealous might be what's he's best at.)

Seungcheol makes friends with Jisoo after school one day, Jihoon knows because they went to each other's houses and Jisoo stopped being best friends. Jihoon doesn't want to go to school anymore, not like this.

 

Seungkwan, Hansol and Chan are two classes below Jihoon. They meet on the 'Friendship Bench', and Jihoon is very jealous of them. Seungkwan is very pretty, Jihoon thinks, and can sing very well. Hansol is very interesting, because he says everyone is a colour, and colours the sky purple and the leaves on the trees yellow. Chan is Jihoon's favourite, because he wears a flower crown to school every day and eats chocolate raisins even though they make him sick. 

Seungkwan leaves the school to go back to Jeju, and then it's just Hansol and Chan and Jihoon left. Hansol's parents don't like Jihoon very much, but they pretend to. They don't like Hansol much either, really. Jihoon doesn't know why. 

Hansol leaves the next week to go back to New York to live with his family. Chan grows out of whatever he had and leaves. Jihoon knows that Chan should have stayed for longer. He pretended he didn't know why.

 

"The sky is purple," Jihoon says confidently, though he hates public speaking. "The sky is purple and the trees are yellow."

His friend, Minghao, grins at him from the back of the college lecture room and Jihoon feels more confident. 

"It's cold here, freezing, worse than that, even, and positivity roams elsewhere. There's only one human, and he is alone, very alone, more alone than he knows. The bench he sits on, made of the wood which he has come to rely on, is the bench where he will say too many goodbyes. He wears a flower crown, because it's the only thing he knows how to do right. It's sad. He's sad. It's always been like that."

This isn't what he wrote down on his essay. The professor knows, Jihoon knows, because he keeps on looking up with an eyebrow raised. Jihoon doesn't care. He doesn't want to.

"Every day, he sits on the bench waiting for people who don't come back. The first was like a puppy. He loved him. Bad things happen when you fall in love, he knows that now, but he didn't then. Back then, he didn't know how to speak, how to be himself. The first taught him. When he smiled," A deep breath. "When he smiled the sun came with it, and the lonely man on the bench swears that the day didn't begin until the stars went it and the sun came out. He was wrong."

Minghao knows that he's improvising, because Jihoon hasn't once looked at his cue cards. 

"The second was talented and afraid. He loved everything that hated him, and the world knew that. It threw everything at him, and he had to deal with it alone. The man on the bench didn't know that. He didn't understand. The second taught the man that the sun doesn't start the day. The day starts when you can't dream of things that are so far away anymore. The stars and the moon can still be up when the day begins, because the day knows when it wants to start."

The trees are yellow.

"When you read a book, do you trace the lines?" Jihoon braces himself and looks at the audience. No one has responded. "When he read a book, the man traced the words and asked the next friend what they meant. Do you know what he said? He said to look in all the corners of the world and then he would find those answers. The man didn't look, because he didn't know how to. He lied because he did."

The sky is purple.

"Dancing in the rain is important," Jihoon's sentences get quiet. "The man learnt that lesson. If you dance in the rain, it keeps you warm from all the cold in this world where the sky is purple. The dancing is hard without the music the next supplied, so he stopped dancing. He didn't mind the cold. He was used to it now."

"The next turns everything pink-" The audience of the lecture hall laugh. It's funny, maybe. "- the world fades to a hue of pink pastels and violent magentas. The sky stops being purple, for the clouds block the sun, and the stars, and the moon, and it's dark all the time. The day no longer exists."

The clouds are green.

"The man sits on the bench for him once he leaves. But he doesn't come back. He promised he would. He lied. The man is very alone and very cold and he's very afraid. It's the same as it was before."

Jihoon wants to cry, but he doesn't. He tells himself that he doesn't know how. He does.

"The next brought out the worst in the man, so he was ignored. In truth, the man was just too cold to think straight."

"The next man believed in fairies and played the guitar. The man took him for granted."

"The next man liked to sing," Something that sounds like leaves rustling passes over the audience. "He liked to sing, and he was very good at it. He sat on the bench with the man and said that everything was okay, that the cold would go away some day. He was right, but that comes in later."

The professor flips over the page and widens his eyes. Jihoon has no idea which bit it's at. 

"He brought two friends with him, that man who sat on the bench," It's cold in the lecture room. "One of them taught the man that the sky was purple, that the trees were green, that the world was in beautiful colour and everyone who existed in it was a colour too. The man remembers that."

Jihoon is so close to the end, he can almost feel it. 

"The next," His voice catches low in his throat. "The next was perfect. The best the man could ever wish for. He wore flower crowns on his head, for he was the prince of the land with the purple sky, and the man on the bench loved him."

Tears gather in the corners of his eyes. He's so close to finishing. 

"The prince was very sick. He was very unwell, and no one knew. Not even his parents. He didn't tell anyone," A fly buzzes somewhere around Jihoon's head. "The man on the bench loved him. The man on the bench loved him. The man on the bench wishes he was here. He's not. He's gone."

"The sky is purple," The audience hush. "The sky is purple and the trees are yellow. It's cold here, freezing even, worse than that and positivity roams elsewhere. The man on the bench speaks to the sun and it listens. He talks to the moon and the stars during the day, while he looks for the answers to his questions. He dances in the rain and paints everything with pink. The man regrets who he gave up. He learnt to sing. He saw the world. He inherited a crown and a throne."

"The man on the bench said too many goodbyes, waited for people who didn't come back, but he doesn't regret a thing. He's grown used to the bench."

**Author's Note:**

> Hooo boy
> 
> This was supposed to be fluffy jigyu as kids?? I don't know what I did??  
> (If you have any questions I'll be sure to answer!)  
> (mainly because this fic is hella confusing whoops)


End file.
